Movie Review: Independence Day Resurgence

The release of "Independence Day Resurgence" is the sequel to the original movie which came out 20 years ago. This is probably the longest period of time between sequels in movie history, especially when you consider how much money the original made in 1996. As I have reviewed in this blog, the original Independence Day was a very good movie with a very stupid and bad ending. This movie had excellent special effects but overall a bad story and an ending that was not as bad as the first but was still a mostly bad ending. The plan to beat the Aliens at the end of this film was extremely convoluted and mostly made no sense. With 20 years to think of ideas for another huge alien movie I definitely expected better than this story and most especially the ending.

Most of the original cast are in this film, the notable exception is Will Smith who dies somehow in the last 20 years but this was never explained. This new version has his son taking over the jet flying and fighting the aliens along with the daughter of the President of the Unites States in the last movie. Judd Hirsh seems to have been placed into this movie after the fact with a crowbar and does not seem to belong in this story at all. Hirsh is on a boat, almost killed, then winds up on a bus and then by some miracle winds up in the Salt Flats at the end of the movie where he reunites​ with his son for the final battle of the movie. He also looks the exact same age he was 20 years ago, which could have been some kind of an oversight with the makeup. The cast overall is effective, but there was way too much build up in this movie before the action or the story really starts. The other stupidity, which also exists in the first movie is allowing the President to join in the Jet fighting and high risk of death dogfights​ with the alien spacecraft. Of course in real life, this would never be allowed, but it is allowed in both of these movies. Overall I was pretty disappointed with the story in this film, but not with the special effects.

Go to this movie to see the special effects and not for the story or satisfying ending.